The invention concerns a method for monitoring the use of a consumable in a disposable design in one or more analyzers which are each configured to analyze one or more liquids in particular body fluids.
Medical diagnostic analyzers are known for different analytical purposes. Such analyzers for example include analyzers for analyzing a body fluid. Such an analyzer can for example be a blood gas analyzer. Blood gas analyzers are for example provided as analyzers for determining diagnostically relevant parameters namely the blood gas values, the electrolyte values, the metabolite values, the haematocrit value, haemoglobin parameters and/or bilirubin value of blood samples. They are used in particular for the decentral determination of the aforementioned parameters in whole blood samples. However, applications in veterinary medicine and the use of serum, plasma, urine and dialysate samples are also possible.
Consumables are also regularly used to operate analyzers. Such consumables for example include a so-called sensor cassette which contains the sensors required for an analyte determination. Consumables are furthermore liquid containers or reagent packs which contain the functional fluids such as calibration solutions, washing solutions, reference liquids or reagent solutions required to operate the analyzer. Often several such liquid containers or reagent packs are also combined into so-called fluid packs. A consumable for an automated quality control can also be provided for example in the form of a cassette with reference solutions in ampoules. However, paper for example in the form of a paper cassette or roll for an internal printer may also be one of the consumables in such a medical diagnostic analyzer. A common feature of the aforementioned consumables is that they are consumables in a so-called disposable design, i.e., disposable consumables which are consumed during operation in one or even several analyzers and cannot be regenerated or refilled. In particular, the disposable consumables also include all disposable consumables whose contents are not consumed in a single step, for example in the case of an analytical test strip, but rather are only partially and successively consumed during operation and can therefore be used to carry out a plurality of measurements and associated actions such as calibration, washing steps or such like in one analyzer or successively in several analyzers. Such consumables. that are also referred to as multi-use consumables and can, together with the respective consumable, be used to successively carry out several actions such as measuring cycles, calibration cycles, quality control cycles, cleaning cycles and/or standby phases in which always only a portion of the contents of the consumable is consumed. Such multi-use consumables are frequently in the form of cassettes or fluid packs which are designed for a plurality of measurements or actions associated therewith and can be disposed of in their entirety as disposable consumables for example after they have been completely used up (for example, complete emptying) or after reaching a maximum period of use.
In contrast to this, consumables are known which are reprocessed after use in order to then use them again. These are then consumables in a reusable design. In this connection a multiple reprocessing after prior use may be scheduled at regular intervals so that several cycles of use can be run through after a prior reprocessing in each case. Thus, the reprocessing of microfluidic devices, so-called microchips, is described in the document US 2005/0019213 A1. It is proposed that the microfluidic devices are provided with a data storage module in order to document in particular the number of so-called washing cycles and cycles of use. This for example allows one to determine whether a microfluidic device has already reached or even exceeded a specified maximum number of cycles of use or a specified maximum number of reprocessing cycles.